Reflections, commentaries, critiques and ideas from 40 years experience in the fields of Community Development, Community Education and Social Justice. Useful tools and techniques that I have learnt also added occassionally.

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The name of this blog, Rainbow Juice, is intentional.The rainbow signifies unity from diversity. It is holistic. The arch suggests the idea of looking at the over-arching concepts: the big picture. To create a rainbow requires air, fire (the sun) and water (raindrops) and us to see it from the earth.Juice suggests an extract; hence rainbow juice is extracting the elements from the rainbow, translating them and making them accessible to us. Juice also refreshes us and here it symbolises our nutritional quest for understanding, compassion and enlightenment.

Tuesday, 19 April 2016

How Should We Think, Mr Einstein?

Albert Einstein is one of the most quoted historical figures: possibly the
most oft quoted scientist. One of his most famous quotations is,

“We can’t solve problems using the same thinking we used when we created
them.”

It seems that Einstein never actually said this, although he was the Chairman
of the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists who sent a telegram to hundreds
of prominent Americans in May 1946, in which the following phrase was mentioned:

“…a new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move
toward higher levels.”

This telegram came in the wake of the dropping of the atomic bombs on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki and at a time of heightened nuclear tensions. Somehow
that extract from the telegram came to be attributed to Einstein himself and
re-formatted to the quotation about not being able to solve problems with the
same thinking that created them. Certainly, when Einstein was interviewed a few
months later he reiterated the quote from the telegram and said to the
interviewer (Michael Amrine)

“We must abandon competition and secure
cooperation.”

Whatever the exact wording, or the circumstances at the time, the quotation
that opened this blog poses a question. What sort of thinking should we be
using? Unfortunately, Albert Einstein is no longer with us (he died 61 years
ago this week) and we are unable to ask him directly. However, we can get some
clues from some of his other quotes and writings. Here are just six modes of
thinking that Einstein used and mentioned.

Simplicity“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”
We have a tendency to want to make things complicated, whereas often the
best answer lies in simplicity. Some professions thrive on making things
complicated, with esoteric language and customs that help to exclude those not
in the know. Think of the legal profession, accountancy, politics, management –
all maintain their power partly by creating a complicated system that others
cannot understand. Since Einstein’s death Complexity Theory has become an arena
of scientific study. But even here, we note that often the keys to unlocking
complex situations are very simple.1

Intuition and Imagination
Einstein loved to play his violin and was an accomplished pianist, and often
said that it was when lost in his music that some of his scientific inspirations
appeared. Contrasting imagination with logic, Einstein concluded that
“logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”

Einstein called the intuitive mind a sacred gift, whereas he called the
rational mind a faithful servant. Twenty years after Einstein’s death Robert
Samples published a book2 that recalled how Einstein viewed the two
minds and concluded, “It is paradoxical that in the context of modern life
we have begun to worship the servant and defile the divine.” Thus giving
rise to another oft quoted saying but misattributed to Einstein.

Curiosity“I have no special talent,” claimed Einstein, “I am only
passionately curious.” Indeed, it was his curiosity that led Einstein to
his famous Special Relativity Theory in 1905. Noticing that two apparent truths
of science appeared to be contradictory, Einstein got curious and wondered why.
He realised that the reason was that both were based on an assumption that he
proceeded to tear apart – resulting in his famous theory.

As children we
continually ask questions, but eventually we lose that capacity when we get to
school where we are taught that the answers are of greater importance. Einstein
disagreed saying that “The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” Perhaps it was because of his desire
to keep questioningthat Einstein was expelled from school at the age
of 16. His teacher claimed he had a “rebellious attitude.”

Make Mistakes“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new,”
Einstein is reported to have said. Many scientists and researchers will
immediately see the wisdom in that phrase, and Einstein himself flippantly said
that “if we knew what we were doing it would not be called research would
it.” Don’t Rely on Technology
For a man whose scientific output was crucial in the development of one of
the world’s most powerful technologies – nuclear energy – it may seem odd that
he would be sceptical of technology. However, in December 1917 he wrote to his
friend, Heinrich Zangger, that “All of our exalted technological progress,
civilization for that matter, is comparable to an axe in the hand of a
pathological criminal. ” This was almost three decades before the
destructive force of Einstein’s equations was unleashed in Japan. In that same
letter to his friend, Einstein laments the lapse towards amorality and says
that “I come to value charity and love of one’s fellow being above
everything else.”Connection and Cooperation
Although Einstein did a lot of his work alone he was acutely aware of the
interconnectedness of life. “When we survey our lives and endeavours,”
he noted, “we soon observe that almost the whole of our actions and
desires are bound up with the existence of other human beings.”

Einstein
did not limit this thinking to humans. “Our task,” he exhorts,
“must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace
all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.”
When we consider the problems that beset us today, arguably more complex and
more interconnected than in Einstein’s lifetime, the wisdom of this last
thinking aspect should become instantly apparent. There are signs that it is
becoming so.

Are these six modes of thinking part of the thinking that we are using today
when facing our problems? Amongst the world’s leadership I have my doubts.
However, at community level and amongst grassroots networks the use of this type
of thinking is becoming more and more apparent. The task of these movements
will be to infiltrate our cultures, our decision-making bodies, and our
institutions with these ways of thinking.

The last word, should be another quote from Albert Einstein. This one ties
it all together, and was written just one year before his death. In it we
glimpse a realisation on Einstein’s part that our thinking must look within for
answers, rather than suggesting that our problems are “out there” and hence the
solutions are “out there” also. That is the real new thinking that we need.

“A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited
in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as
something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness.
This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires
and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free
ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all
living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a
human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have
obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner
of thinking if humanity is to survive.”

1. For example, the Mandelbrot Fractal (possibly the most widely known visual
representation of complexity) is produced using a very simple equation:
zn+1 = zn2 + c

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About Me

I have almost 40 years experience working (paid and unpaid, government and non-government) in community development/education and social justice fields. I have continued to keep myself abreast of philosophies and theories in these and related fields. This blogsite will offer ideas, thoughts, reflections on these fields as well as giving some tools and techniques. I don't pretend that these will be original but I do hope that they will be able to translate some of these diverse ideas into coherent forms accessible to workers in the areas.